Obama, Greens in permit conflict

The Obama administration wants to double the amount of renewable power permits awarded this year but is running into a potential problem: environmentalists.

Partly driven by the presidential election, the Interior Department has set a goal of approving permits for 9,000 megawatts’ worth of renewable energy on public lands by the end of 2011. That’s more than twice what Interior approved in 2010 through its Fast Track program for a dozen renewable projects.

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On paper, this should be easy.

Environmental groups can ill-afford to fight forms of energy that they are promising will keep the lights on without contributing to climate change. And renewable energy developers — already struggling to compete with older, more established and, for the moment, cheaper fossil fuels — cannot afford to spend years in court waiting for their projects to move forward. So the groups are continually collaborating to head conflict off at the pass.

But there is already grumbling at the margins that one side or the other isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.

“At some point, we may see preferential treatment for renewable energy [over oil and gas], but we certainly haven’t so far,” said one wind energy executive whose company has largely avoided public lands for fear of permit hassles. If anything, renewable energy is facing more scrutiny because it’s the new kid on the block, the executive said. A top official at one environmental group, speaking on condition of anonymity, told POLITICO that the fast-track permitting was a “very painful process” and that projects went forward on sites where they “probably” shouldn’t have.

The risk is that renewable power development falls into the same routine as oil and gas drilling on federal lands throughout the West: Drillers continually apply for permits in places environmentalists say they can’t accept, and the greens continually sue Interior in an attempt to block the projects from going forward.

Now, as renewable energy developers eye the vast federal estate for their projects, the potential for collision with the greens is immense. Many of the same spaces environmentalists prize for their solitude are the hot spots for the wind and sunshine that all parties involved are counting on to power a clean energy revolution.

Despite the potential conflict, Chase Huntley — a clean energy policy adviser for The Wilderness Society — believes that environmentalists, the renewable energy industry and the federal government can do better than they have with fossil fuels. The trick, he says, is to create a permitting process that deals with environmental conflicts ahead of time.

Time is a factor because the Obama administration needs to — and is going to — move these projects forward before the 2012 election, whether the kinks are worked out or not.